This is quite natural, in a way. Exceptionally well-trained dogs aside, most of these animals require calling by name, very loudly, 17 or 18 times before they'll take any notice, so if you'd shared a park with Connor even once or twice, and didn't know he was called Connor, you'd be an idiot.

Even though you're liable to talk to Connor's owner at some length, it never seems like the right time to introduce yourself. (If you said, 'Hello, I'm Zoe' the first time you met, you'd half-expect them to say, 'So?' And by the seventh time, it's too late.)

On the very rare occasion that a pet owner does introduce herself, the two names (Mitzie and Sparky) get inextricably confused in my head, and now I can't remember which is the owner and which the dog (this sheds some light on why people don't do it more often).

When you need to address the owner (say he's chatting, and his dog has ambushed a toddler, and stuck its head down its jumper), you're left with 'Oi!' which is rude; 'Excuse me' which fails to convey any urgency; or 'Rusty's Dad!' which is weird and wrong.

That said, the one time somebody did call me 'Spot's mum', I found it rather tickling.